FARMINGTON, Conn., Jan. 23, 2013 /PRNewswire-iReach/ -- As economies have slowed in North America and Europe, many countries in the Asia-Pacific have grown steadily. As a result, the number of wealthy individuals in the region has also continued to increase and Asia-Pacific for the first time has become home to the largest number of high-net-wealth individuals (HNWI) in the world.

This rise of a small but surging population of wealthy individuals is particularly important to issuers of high-end financial products such as premium credit cards. The future of premium credit cards in Asia is undoubtedly bright due to strong economic growth and promising population demographics. Examining the current state of the premium segment in the region enables a deeper understanding of the status quo and strong strategic decisions for the future.

In South Korea, NFC-enabled devices issued by telecom companies are expected to increase the scope of mobile payments as government efforts and customer deleveraging will decrease the scope of credit cards. The card market in China is exhibiting double digit growth both in value and volume terms. In Indonesia, transaction volumes increased from 1.3 billion in 2008 to 2.3 billion in 2012. As the premium credit card market emerges in the Asia-Pacific region, the opportunities and features associated with these cards will grow in parallel, benefiting all parties involved.

This report examines the state of HNWIs in the Asia-Pacific market. The research provides a broad understanding of the HNWI demographic, projects their growth in selected Asia-Pacific markets, and surveys premium credit card growth in the Chinese, Singaporean, Thai, Indonesian and Malaysian credit card markets. Also included is a breakdown of premium credit card trends and offers in Asia, a comparison to domestic counterparts, and a discussion of the opportunities and challenges of market expansion into Asia-Pacific markets.

Mobile commerce transactions in South Korea are expected to record positive growth as telecom operators introduce NFC-based platforms for mobile devices. SK Telecom and KT jointly sold 250,000 NFC-enabled Samsung Galaxy Notes in December 2011 alone. Mobile operator KT rolled out NFC-enabled SIM cards in 2010 and South Koreas third-largest mobile operator LG U+ also rolled out NFC phones such as the LG Optimus. KT has estimated that the cumulative sales of NFC-enabled phones sold by all operators will reach 20 million by the end of 2012. Telecom companies are also replacing traditional SIM cards with NFC-enabled SIM cards which is expected to increase scope of card-based payments.

Meanwhile, an increase in household debt has prompted the South Korean government to introduce measures to discourage credit card spending. The government reduced the amount of tax deducted from credit card transactions and increased the level of tax deducted from debit and prepaid card expenditure.

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of South Korea's cards and payments industry.

The Indonesian cards and payments industry grew at a CAGR of 19.3% during the review period from $84.6 billion in 2008 to $188.6 billion in 2012 and is anticipated to grow at a CAGR of 10.7% over the forecast period (2013-2017), from $22.6 billion in 2013 to $334.4 billion in 2017. Debit cards dominated the industry with a market share of 57.7% in 2012, followed by prepaid, credit and charge cards with respective shares of 29.4%, 12.6% and 0.4%. Banks and card issuers in Indonesia have introduced several new technologies to increase levels of consumer convenience. Indonesian mobile operators are also making efforts to establish the required infrastructure for near field communication (NFC) technology through which customers can make purchases via their mobile phones. Banks are migrating to Europay, MasterCard and Visa (EMV) cards in order to provide enhanced security features to customers.

The payment card market in China showed double digit growth both in value and volume terms during the review period. The debit card market grew at a CAGR of 17.27% during the review period in value terms. In volume terms the growth was even significant and was 47.6%. Similarly the credit card market grew at a CAGR of 34.1% in volume terms during the review period. In value terms the market grew by 60.0%. Both the debit and credit card market are expected to grow positively in value and volume terms during the forecast period. A notable tendency in the card market is that consumers use credit and debit cards for making high-value transactions.

About Global Information Inc. Global Information (GII) (http://www.giiresearch.com) is an information service company partnering with over 300 research companies around the world. Global Information has been in the business of distributing technical and market research for more than 25 years. Expanded from its original headquarters in Japan, Global Information now has offices in Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Europe and the United States.

The developments in Google’s Cloud Computing segment, especially the Cloud Machine Learning service, have been so rapid that Google calls it one of its fastest growing product areas. Google has been ramping up their Cloud Platform quite aggressively in recent months. Just a few weeks a...

Hiring a digital marketer starts as soon as you plan to launch a prototype of your innovative idea. But, without knowing anything about digital marketing, you may not be able to reach out to investors and target audiences. You can follow the following basic points to know the significa...

When we talk about the impact of BYOD and BYOA and the Internet of Things, we often focus on the impact on data center architectures. That's because there will be an increasing need for authentication, for access control, for security, for application delivery as the number of potentia...

While walking around the office I happened upon a relatively new employee dragging emails from his inbox into folders. I asked why and was told, “I’m just answering emails and getting stuff off my desk.” An empty inbox may be emotionally satisfying to look at, but in practice, you shou...

An update to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) is coming. Did I lose you already? If you're not familiar with WCAG, it's a collection of guidelines that developers, designers and accessibility experts use to help ensure the apps and websites they create are accessible to ...